Newsroom

The Sinclair Wetlands is a 315-hectare portion of the Lakes Waihola-Waipori wetland complex, south of Dunedin.

In early farming days, most of the Taieri Plains wetlands were drained and converted to farmland, leaving just two of the original lakes (Waihola and Waipori) and their adjacent swamps. Even parts of the Sinclair Wetlands were farmed. In 1984 they were gifted back to a trust to return to wetlands.

Since then there has been a lot of work to create a space that the community can enjoy, and there is now an increase of wildlife returning to the wetlands and breading breeding. The work however is ongoing so volunteers are always welcome.

The Dunedin team of 28 got stuck in for a solid seven hours clearing gorse and planting native plants.

The space they have started to clear will become the ‘Crombie Lockwood’ area which they will maintain.

In addition, they are also having a seat made which will be donated and placed on one of the walkways.